


Blind Spots

by Reyemile



Series: Seeing One Another [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-23 10:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21319015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyemile/pseuds/Reyemile
Summary: Kagami and Marinette attempt to sort out love, friendship, magic, and ancient secrets at the Louvre. But they're not the only ones paying the museum a visit.Sequel to Blind Days, Days Blind, and Sunglasses in Class.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi
Series: Seeing One Another [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1511747
Comments: 112
Kudos: 736





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks, friendly reminder that this work is part 4 of a series and if you're finding this on its own, you should scroll up and click "Previous Works."
> 
> If you're here and you HAVE kept up-to-date, then thank you so much for your readership and patronage. I hope you continue to enjoy!

The weeping passed quickly as it came, and Marinette pulled herself together. Her mercury tears shimmered on Kagami’s school uniform, though they would evaporate soon enough. 

Kagami pushed off the ground to get Marinette upright and took stock of the two girls in the doorway. The dusky one with flaming red hair had to be Alya. From the daggers she was staring across the horizon, she’d finally wisened up to Lila’s games. The pink-clad blonde, on the other hand, was unfamiliar. She was staring at Marinette and Kagami with an out-of-place elation that made the fencer feel deeply uncomfortable.

Before Marinette had fully collected herself, a third watcher joined the girls in the entryway. Adrien Agreste’s sneakers squealed as he skidded to a halt, and he grabbed his knees and bent over, out of breath. “Sorry… came… as soon as I heard… shouting. Everyone okay?”

“Weren’t you supposed to be walking Lila around everywhere she went?” Alya accused.

“She asked me to grab some notes for her from another classroom,” said Adrien. He shoved off his knees and stood straight. “Marinette, do you have a minute? There’s something I wanted to tell you before personally, before word gets out.”

“Yes!” Alya said, jumping to attention with a playful grin. “Marinette, let’s get you and Adrien someplace private so you two can--”

“No!” said the pink girl, and Kagami’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think Marinette’s very happy with him right now. And besides, Kagami _ just _got here. I’m sure those two want to catch up--”

“--_ after _ Adrien’s had his alone time with Marinette, right?”

Neither of the girls looked to be any kind of physical threat to a martial artist of Kagami’s caliber, but something about the two of them triggered her fight-or-flight instincts. “What’s going on?” Kagami whispered in Marinette’s ear. 

Marinette’s answer, though clearly French, was unfamiliar to Kagami.

“I don’t know that word. What’s ‘stupid shippers’?” she asked. 

“Hold on, hold on,” Adrien said. “Marinette, is Rose right? I know your day’s been pretty rough, but I’m not sure why you’d be upset with me. Unless--” He rubbed his face with his hands. “She came straight here and told you herself, didn’t she?”

Marinette let out a black chuckle. “I’m sure she’ll claim that she didn’t even notice I was there when she asked the Principal for permission to attend the shoot. What terrible luck that I happened to overhear.”

“Adrien… I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” said Rose. When she wasn’t doing her ‘shipper’ thing, whatever that was, she was meek. “But I think Lila’s been lying. A lot. Like, everything about her injury and eyepatch--it looks like it was all fake.”

“I know,” Adrien said. Rose gasped and Alya shouted. Neither Kagami nor Marinette reacted visibly. “Marinette, I’m sorry I let her get the better of me. I was just trying to keep the peace and make everyone happy, and the conversation got away from me.”

“Wait. No. Hold up--you knew Lila was a liar from the beginning?” demanded Alya.

Adrien wasn’t the type to dodge responsibility. Nevertheless, Kagami wouldn’t leave him any wiggle room. He was sweet, strong, and smart, but today, he was in the wrong. “Lila’s lies led directly to my Akumatization,” Kagami said, and Rose’s look of genuine sympathy raised Kagami’s admittedly low first impression of the girl by a few notches. “So yes, he is quite aware that she’s dishonest.”

“Adrien, how could you?” asked Rose. “How--how many _ more _of my friends would you have let her hurt, if I hadn’t caught her?”

“Please stop!” said Marinette. Kagami did not budge from her side. “You’re all trying to help. I know that. But right now… there’s too many cooks spoiling the broth. I can’t deal with this _ and _ with needing help to brush my teeth and use my phone. I’m really happy to see that Lila’s spell has broken. And I can’t express what it means to me that all three of you are trying to make things right. But I don’t need that _ now. _ What I need is to try to get some exercise and get some homework done and get a good night’s sleep, and for help with _ that, _ Kagami’s the best suited. So, please don’t interpret this as anger or spite, it’s just me being tired, but: have a nice day, all of you. I’ll see you--well, I’ll _ talk _with you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Alya said. “I’ve… I’ve got some things I really need to say to you, whenever you’re ready. And you’ve probably got some choice words for _ me, _too. When the time comes, say what you gotta. I’m a big girl. I can take my just desserts.”

“Oh, I can’t believe I’m spoiling the rest of your day!” Rose was giddy again, hands clasped tightly in front of her chest. “You two have fun doing _ whatever _it is you plan to do!”

Adrien was next. “What they said. Kagami, please look out for her, okay? Oh, and I’ll see you tomorrow at fencing?”

“Bring concealer,” Kagami said. “Your father will be cross if I return you to him visibly bruised.”

Adrien swallowed, Rose shied away half-terrified, and Alya and Marinette both laughed. 

“Alya, Rose, at some point we will be introduced properly. For today, forgive my rudeness. Marinette. The car is waiting.” She turned them around. “Steps in three, two, one, down. Eight steps to the bottom, seven, six…”

The two girls and one boy called their goodbyes once more, and Marinette used her free hand to wave back. Twenty meters later, they were in the car, and Tatsu departed on an automated path to the Louvre.

\------

“...and I was thinking, ‘if she hides out until the magical Ladybugs, it’s right back to my word against hers.’ I had her dead to rights! And I lost sight of everything--pun intended--and nearly got myself killed trying to catch her.”

Kagami pursed her lips in thought. The big picture she’d deduced on the school steps had proven mostly accurate, but Marinette had filled in a lot of little details, and Kagami wanted to keep them all straight. “Quick thinking by Rose. Lila’s game would have played out perfectly without her.”

“Yeah,” said Marinette. “I don’t have any of the details, but a friend of hers got played and used by a liar. That’s why she was wary. She was being paranoid, only it’s not paranoia when they’re really out to get you.”

“Mmm hmm,” said Kagami, still musing. “As for Adrien… please don’t be mad at him.”

“I’m not!” Marinette said. “And shouldn’t _ I _ be saying that to _ you _? You threatened to beat him up today. Twice!”

Kagami smiled. “I offered to beat sense into him. A very different thing.”

Marinette’s head lolled back onto the headrest. “The worst part is that the thing he’s doing right now, even though it’s driving me crazy, is also the reason I fell in-- I mean, the reason I like--”

“Marinette, I am touching your knee,” Kagami said, and then did so. “We are friends. Even if we are rivals, which is still indeterminate, we need not censor ourselves on this topic.”

Marinette licked her dry lips. She quivered with a faint edge of panic, but took Kagami’s corrections to heart. “I fell in love with him… because he’s a peacemaker. When I accidentally drove a friend into Hawk Moth’s clutches by getting Adrien a spot on a video game team, he worked to hard to patch everyone’s feelings back together. And he _ has _to be good at being friendly, working behind the scenes, because…”

“...his father,” Kagami completed.

“Yeah. Big blow-outs won’t get him anywhere. Plus the fashion industry. I’m just getting started and some of the divas I deal with drive me crazy! When he’s got photographers and makeup artists and designers around him all the time, he must deal with dramatic scenes on an hourly basis. So I _ understand _why he wanted to take the high road with Lila, and in some ways it’s even loveable, but he can’t see that it just. Won’t. Work!”

“American English has a phrase for this,” Kagami said. She spoke it trippingly with a thickly French accent on the first half, then overcompensated and let her Japanese accent color the second. “Translated, it means, ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’.”

“And he can’t see that someone like Lila needs to have the screws put to her.”

“I believe you are mixing metaphors.”

“Maybe. How much longer?”

“Tatsu,” Kagami said loudly. She still had her mother’s voice recorded in case she needed Tatsu to go somewhere other than the list of destinations that Tomoe had pre-authorized, but this command was not proprietary. “ETA?”

“Four minutes,” the computer said.

“Before we arrive, I have one question. Rose’s behavior when she saw me was… disconcerting. Do you know what was going on?”

“Oh, I have no idea!” Marinette was trying to scratch the back of her head, but the headrest was in the way, so she ended up nervously scratching the car. “I can’t imagine why she’d do that and dammit Marinette, you’re not supposed to be like this, what are you doing? Kagami, I promised you that I’d tell you anything I figured out about myself, and that I wouldn’t waste your eyesight. Can you tell me what I promised you?”

Kagami frowned. “Can I… tell you… what you just told me?”

“I know it makes no sense but I really, really need to hear it from _ you. _Please?”

_ Ridiculous. Pitiable. I used to hate it, but now, it’s almost endearing. _“Marinette, you promised me that you would not waste my time with matters of the heart, because my eyes give me no time to--”

“I LIKE GIRLS!” Marinette shouted. Then she tugged the collar of her shirt up over her face to hide herself.

_ Change targets. _

“That’s… wonderful,” said Kagami. She thought the blind girl was on the verge of bursting a blood vessel, but she also thought that any direct attempt to calm her down would backfire. And she _ knew _that fully expressing her joy at the news would reduce Marinette into an anxious heap. So instead, she deflected. “And that explains Rose, how?”

The steadiness Kagami tried to project was at least partially received, and Marinette unturtled her head. “So I made a mess of myself making assumptions about her and another girl, but long story short, I asked them for advice on figuring out my se-sexua-- my _ identity _. And they had me imagining Gabriel Agreste’s supermodel daughter, Adrienne, and she was so, so pretty.”

A long blonde braid, piercing green eyes, six-pack on display between top and bottom of a bikini--

“Yes,” said a flustered Kagami. “I can see how that might work.”

“Anyway, now I know I like girls. Some girls. In principle. I… you… us… I still need more time on that. But Rose, she saw my eyes and decided that you and I are destined for each other. Because of poetry. And mirrors. And Kagami. Which is your name.”

“Ah. I hope you know that’s nonsense?” 

Marinette’s face fell. “I… yeah. Total nonsense.”

“Cosmic coincidence and soulmates and poetry are all irrelevant,” Kagami said. “If you become my target, it won’t be because Mother’s taste in names coincided with Hawk Moth’s taste in tacky villainy. If I am pursuing you, I will have exactly one reason: _ you _have become the one I want.”

Marinette had turned her head towards Kagami, and her jaw was practically in her lap. Unable to resist, Kagami tapped Marinette’s chin and closed her mouth.

Marinette once again hid in her shirt. 

Kagami laughed. 

“Don’t make fun of me!” said Marinette, though to Kagami’s ear she wasn’t truly offended. Still, appearances were everything, and Marinette was vulnerable. 

“I’m touching your shoulder,” said Kagami. Marinette replied to the warning with something like a _ meep, _but she didn’t pull away. “Thank you for keeping your promise, Marinette. I should not mock your good-faith effort.”

“I shouldn’t be so mockable,” she said, muffled by her shirt. “I don’t know why this is so hard for me.”

“That is…” Kagami began, and Marinette shrank even smaller, plucking at Kagami’s heartstrings. “That is a topic for another day. For now, let’s put all thoughts of romance aside. ”

“I can’t just--no. No, that’s not true. I totally can.” She laughed weakly. “We’re not very good at hanging out, are we? When we’re not being super-awkward, we’re tying ourselves in knots about each others problems. And I’m making it sound awful when it’s not, I really like spending time with you! I’m just saying we need suck specifically at _ hanging out, _ and we need something to _ do. _”

“Agreed.”

“I… we… baking with you made the rest of the world go away for a little while. I want to feel that way again.”

_ I make the rest of the world go away, do I? _ Kagami thought. _ I could read a lot into that, if I were so inclined. _Out loud, she said, “I’ve been told that it would take 100 days to see every piece of art in the Louvre. We will find something to keep us busy, I’m sure. Do you have any exhibits you want to visit?”

“I shouldn’t be encouraging this, but… are you still planning to study ancient mysticism and magic?”

Harsh reality doused the embers burning in Kagami’s chest. Mother’s voice echoed in her memory. _ Pick. Up. Your. Sword. _

“Mother expressed… resistance… to the idea.”

“And that should be great news, because it means you won’t get yourself maimed trying to exorcise an akuma. But I don’t need to see you to sense your sadness that you hit a dead end so early on.”

“Not a dead end. Simply… a circuitous route. I _ will _follow this path, wherever it leads me. Even if, without my mother’s resources, I have to do it entirely on my own.

“No, Kagami. You’re not on your own,” said Marinette. “Oh god, I’m going to regret this. Let’s start in the Egyptian wing. It’s not much, but there’s _ definitely _an exhibit or two that you’ll find... educational.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Here is your cane.” Kagami flicked her wrist, and the interior elastic snapped the folding cane into its extended position. “Keep it on your person at all times.”

“Sure,” said Marinette. She swept it in front of her. Kagami played hopscotch to avoid a pair of whacked shins. “How do I use it?”

“You don’t.” Kagami stopped the stick with a forearm block, then pressed it flat against Marinette’s chest. “Cane walking is a difficult skill. If you try it without practice, you’ll trip and fall. Or put someone’s eye out. Or both.”

“Then what’s it for?”

Kagami took Marinette’s elbow and started walked them down the empty handicapped entry queue. It was afternoon on a Monday, so the tourists weren’t out in fullest force, but the direct path to ticketing was still twenty minutes saved. “It’s so others can see you are blind. Without it, they will assume you see them coming. You’re likely to be trampled.”

She clutched the cane a little closer. “Let’s not do that.”

Kagami approached the ticketing booth. The agent, a skinny thirty-something with a waxed pencil mustache, smiled to greet her. “Mlle. Tsurugi! Not here with your mother today. A new guest, instead?”

“Yes. Marinette is a friend of mine. Two tickets, and an audio guide, please.”

“Before I can do that for you,” said the man, “I’ll need to see proof of disability.”

“Proof?” Marinette asked.

“Mlle. Tsurugi has been a wonderfully polite guest, and if it were up to me, I’d trust her,” he said. “But rules are rules. And to be frank, you wouldn’t be the first people to think it clever to skip lines with a pair of glasses and a stick. So, proof of--my word!”

Kagami glanced to the side. Marinette had taken off her sunglasses. “Ladybug says she’ll be able to purify the affliction in the next few days, but until then, I’m blind as a bat.”

“I… see. Normally I’d still require a doctor’s verification, but under the circumstances, I think we can make an exception. One moment…” He rustled around behind his counter to set up the audio device, and Kagami slipped a few bills through the slot in his glass window. 

“I’m not going to miss being blind,” Marinette said while he searched, “but I’m definitely going to miss making people freak out just by looking at them.”

“You’ve gotten considerable mileage out of the trick.”

“It’s too bad the cookies didn’t come out all that great.”

“Then we’ll do better next time. He’s done.” Kagami collected her change and their passes, and Marinette tucked on of the earbuds into place. 

“This feels like a keypad?” she asked. She was a quick study, feeling the keys with her sensitive left hand. “Like on an old-style phone, I’m guessing the braille is the numbers 1-9? Wait, no. I recognize… four dots in a box shape, that was G for grams.”

Kagami was impressed. “You are correct. There are only so many possible combinations of dots. Braille uses A through J in place of digits. There is a specific ‘number’ symbol that tells you a string of characters is mathematical, but they omitted it from these buttons to save space.”

“That makes sense. So I’m guessing there is a code at each exhibit?”

“Yes. I’ll be happy to enter them for you.”

“Umm...I’d rather do it myself? if you don’t mind being patient, that is.”

That piqued Kagami’s interest. “I will accommodate you however is most convenient, but I have to ask. Why?” She returned to her place at Marinette’s side and walked them towards the elevator down. 

“The only braille in my parents’ bakery is on the bathroom doors, and that’s only because the signage we bought came that way,” she said. “Your mother should be as welcome in my house as she’s made me in hers. Once I’m back home, I’m going to get some braille menus printed up, and maybe see about getting a braille label-maker to post daily on the glass. But I’m not going to trust other people to do those tasks for me; publishing something I haven’t proofread myself is a recipe for disaster.”

_ Is there is no bottom to the well of your kindness, Marinette? _Kagami thought with fondness. 

Needless to say, she permitted none of that feeling to break through her collected exterior. 

“Tell me when it’s prepared, and I’ll arrange a visit. Three steps forward into the elevator. Shall we?”

Marinette smiled. “We shall.”

——-

“The description of the khopesh is really confusing,” said Marinette, pressing the rewind button to listen again. “How can it be a sword, a hook, and an axe all at once?”

The ancient weapon of pitted bronze was held against a felt wall by pins next to a lapis amulet, a gold mask, and several fragments of inscribed pottery. Once upon a time it had been a weapon of war, but with its grip rotted away and its blade dulled by millenia, it was currently less dangerous than a mid-weight crowbar. “The blade is shaped like a question mark,” Kagami said.

“Oh. Why didn’t they just _ say _that? So it’s all steel like a sword, the outside of the curve is sharp like an axehead, and the inside of the curve is a dull hook. Now I get it. Could you fight with it?”

Kata played out in rapid succession in Kagami’s mind. “Not well. The hacking edge relies on more brute strength than I possess. And I’ve never trained with swordbreakers like _ jitte _ or _ main-gauche, _ so the mechanics of the hook are alien to me.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s about as far from a foil as you can get while still technically being a ‘sword’,” Marinette said.

Impulsively, Kagami added, “Indeed. But if it were all I had to stand between you and an akuma, I’d find a way.”

The stricken look on Marinette’s face brought Kagami instant regret. “Kagami, please don’t say things like that.” 

“I apologize—”

“You shouldn’t even joke about that--”

“I know you are uncomfortable with flirting—”

“--you could get hurt fighting akuma, and that'd break my heart--wait, _ what?” _

“--and I breached your trust--wait, _ what? _”

The two girls stood perfectly frozen. The only parts of them that moved were their shallow breaths and the blood steadily pooling in their respective cheeks.

“I think the next exhibit is the one I wanted you to see!” Marinette blurted out.

“Marinette, I—”

“_ Next. Exhibit!” _

“Yes,” Kagami said. She looped their arms again, and took a measure of comfort in Marinette not flinching--her misstep had not cost her _ that _badly.

They moved on to a papyrus scroll, dilapidated and worn, held in a glass case. Marinette located the exhibit placard and brushed her fingers across the front of it. “Five-one-two-two-five?”

“Nine-one-two-two-nine.” 

“Darn. I’ll get it right one of these days.” She keyed the code into the audio device and pressed the bud into her ear. “Yup, this is it!.” She offered the other bud to Kagami.

Kagami listened to a stilted recitation of a tale of wizards, warriors, and mummies. Interesting if true, but nothing immediately differentiated it from a 5-euro fantasy novel for sale at an airport newsstand. She said as much.

“Reports are spotty,” said Marinette, “but it sounds like Ladybug confirmed this one actually happened. Do you see the warrior? Take a look at what she’s wearing and the weapon she has. If it helps, imagine it in red.”

It wasn’t much of a riddle, when the answer was spelled out for her. “A previous Ladybug.”

“That’s one theory,” said Marinette. “Some people are saying that’s _ the _Ladybug and she’s 5000 years old, but I’m not buying it.”

“I concur.” Her thoughts strayed a bit as she took in the tableau. _ Had yo-yos been invented in ancient Egyptian times? Or did Ladybug come first, and the yo-yo was stolen from her later? _But idle musings accomplished nothing. “But this is the opposite of solving my problem, Marinette. It’s telling me that people need miraculous to save them.”

“They needed miraculous to save them from a perfectly human wizard!” said Marinette. “No animal theme, no magic weapon or costume, for the bad guy. Just normal Egyptian robes and a staff. Which I think is… that way?”

Marinette was almost 90 degrees off target, but the large glass case with the gold-and-green snake sceptre was unmissable to Kagami. The two walked up to the case. Marinette got the number correct this time, and was in the process of beginning the narration, when a museum employee walked up to them.

He was a slim brown-haired man in a brown jacket and a scarf that looked too warm for the weather. He was severe in expression and tone, but his words at least polite. “Pardon me, mademoiselles. I overheard you two discussing the story of the Pharaoh and the Lucky Scarab. My name is Jalil Kubdel, and I’m something of an expert on this particular bit of mythos, and it would be a pleasure to share the story in more detail than that… box… would provide.”

Kagami was ill at ease with the young man, but Marinette smiled brightly. “Jalil! I’m glad you’re on shift today. We’d love to hear your version of the tale. If it’s not too personal.”

The man looked faintly panicked. “Oh, it’s… you! I… didn’t recognize you from… where I know you from.”

Marinette wasn’t offended. “It’s okay, we barely met. I’m Alix’s classmate, Marinette. This is my friend Kagami.”

“Her.. classmate?” Thoughtfulness, and a dash of doubt, crossed his face. “I have a poor memory for faces, but I’d have remembered a blind girl, I think.”

An impish smile graced Marinette’s lips. Very subtly, she whispered, “Wait for it…”

“The only one with pigtails was following the crazed redhead around. But she wasn’t blind--unless you lost your sight recentl--_ Allah preserve us! _”

Marinette’s timing was impeccable, and the man, Jalil, literally leapt into the air at the shock of Marinette’s eyes. Kagami would not dignify a base prank with laughter, but inside she was smiling and she gave Marinette’s arm an approving squeeze. “Recent and, hopefully, temporary,” Marinette answered. 

“I… yes, I can see why you’d have an interest in Ladybug’s historical feats,” he said, adjusting his scarf.

“Historical feats?” Marinette asked. “You’re part of the ‘ancient Ladybug’ school?” She still wore her impish smile, but this time Kagami was left out of the joke. 

“Yes and no. I can’t ignore the overwhelming evidence that Ladybug has a normal French identity to protect, but the heroism and bravery of Ladybug is practically mythic. This is pure speculation, but I believe Ladybug is a case of…” He scanned the crowd and lowered his voice, unwilling to be overheard. “...spiritual possession.”

Marinette covered her mouth with her free hand. From the front, her hand looked to hide a gasp, but from Kagami’s angle, she was hiding a grin. “You mean some poor girl is being taken over by a 5000-year-old ghost?”

“Or she plays willing host,” said Jalil, not devoid of kindness. “For her sake, I hope so.”

Kagami personally knew that Jalil was far off the mark. But he was shooting in the general direction of the target. _ How old is Longg, I wonder? _

“So, the staff?” Marinette asked. 

“Ah, yes. Forgive me.” He cleared his throat, and began to share the tale.

Jalil wasn’t half bad when it came to storytelling, especially when it came to the modern history of the staff. Kagami was 90% sure that Jalil himself was the akumatized Pharaoh in the story, but had no polite way to ask. Kagami resolved to investigate further on the Ladyblog. 

He described the battle, briefly but engagingly, and the restoration of Pharaoh’s mummies by the magical ladybug swarm. “But how much of that magic was Hawk Moth’s evil?” he concluded. “And how much, if any, still lies fallow within that staff? Only Ladybug knows, and she has remained silent.”

Kagami saw why Marinette had brought her here. Granted, magic and swordplay were far removed (if video games were to be believed), but that staff represented potential. Promise. Power. A chance for a mere mortal to make a difference against those wielding the power of gods. And yet… it was a lie.

“I disagree,” Kagami said. “Ladybug has spoken.”

Jalil scowled. Kagami, being fifteen, female, and foreign, knew that scorned and patronizing expression intimately. Marinette, on the other hand, was completely baffled. “She… has?”

“She left it here,” Kagami said.

“I believe I already said as much,” said Jalil.

“She left it here.” Kagami explained patiently. “Which means it’s an empty trinket. Unless you believe that she abandoned a necromantic artifact fueled by 100 corpses to molder in a museum? Where a villain like Hawk Moth could grab it at their leisure? Either Ladybug has made a critical error, M. Kubdel, or you have. And forgive my presumption, but I know which of those choices I believe.”

Kagami could almost hear M. Kubdel’s heart breaking. And Marinette, continuing to react inexplicably to this whole affair, was all of a sudden a chalky white.

Kagami had several false starts trying to figure out why. Jalil wasn’t a close friend, nor was his sister Alix, so it wasn’t about social consequences. A junior staffer couldn’t have them kicked out of the museum for simple back talk. And there was no way that this young man, barely out of boyhood, posed a physical threat. Unless…

...unless he had been Pharaoh, and Marinette feared he’d be akumatized again. 

“Therefore,” she said, “you and I will have to look elsewhere for true magic. It _ must _ exist. I refuse to accept that all the world’s magic is hoarded by a few miraculous holders. Change targets.” _ I’m saying that a lot lately, aren’t I? _“Surely the stories of great heroes apply to more than this one scepter.”

“I…” Jalil swallowed. “I… yes. The… the Lapis Mask, maybe? I never took it seriously because the three versions of the story all contradicted, but maybe if I could establish one predating the others. Or… the Scales of Babylon? It would take years to get up to speed on Mesopotamian culture, but the Scales’ magical feats are as close to definitively documented as anything in classical history. I… I’ll find something…” He was still shaken to the core. He didn’t even bother to excuse himself when he turned and left. But he left with a semblance of purpose.

“I hope that’s enough to keep Hawk Moth away,” Kagami whispered. “I did not expect my words to do such damage.”

“Wha… right! That’s totally what I was nervous about and I’m glad you took care of that!” Marinette’s color hadn’t returned. Hopefully the nerves would pass. Kagami could do nothing further. “I’m… not really into Egypt any more. Does the Louvre have a Babylonian exhibit? I’m getting tired, but I’m not ready to give up yet. Let’s give it one more try.”

Kagami unfolded a glossy exhibit map and checked the key. “Yes, that way. Through the hall, though there is a bit of a crowd at the end.”

Kagami gave brief descriptions of the items down the hall. Pots, cuneiform bricks, fertility idols. They stopped to listen only once, for an ancient woven rug. “Snap a picture, please, Kagami? I might try designing with that pattern later.” More pots, more cuneiform, an assortment of bronze axe heads. 

The crowd blocking the exit had not moved.

“Excuse me,” Kagami said to the back of a tall man, bald and dark, in a denim jacket. “Excuse me,” she repeated. When he didn’t respond, she frowned, and tugged Marinette a few steps to the right. “Excuse me,” she said to a woman in a shawl, whose red curly hair had streaks of gray.

“What’s happening?” asked Marinette. 

“An exceptionally engaging exhibit, apparently,” said Kagami. One more try, this one young and in messy hair and an undone button-down shirt. “Excuse me!” When he didn’t respond, she grabbed his shoulder to turn around.

The whole crowd turned with him. And when they did, Kagami saw herself and Marinette a dozen times, reflected in faces as smooth and mirrorlike as Marinette’s blind eyes. 

Kagami stepped backwards, dragging Marinette with her. “Kagami?” the French girl asked.

The crowd, as one, stepped forward. 

“Marinette?” said Kagami. “_ Run.” _

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

“What’s going on?” asked Marinette. 

“Akuma,” said Kagami. “Run!”

Marinette obeyed, and though they weren’t moving at close to full speed, it was faster than the shuffling mirror-mob. “”What’s the--ack!” Marinette tripped on some unseen obstruction, but momentum and Kagami’s strength prevented a tumble to the dirt. “What’s the villain doing?”

“Just minions,” Kagami said. “Stop!” They’d entered the large Egyptian room, and though said minions were following, they’d bought a few seconds lead. Kagami elbowed the glass on a fire alarm by the entrance and pulled the handle. Blaring sirens sounded promptly. Kagami wiped the indelible security ink dry on her shirt, then said “Cane!” and grabbed the stick from Marinette. It was built for lightness, but Kagami collapsed it; folded on itself in three, it had heft enough to strike a solid blow. “Run!” she instructed again, leading Marinette, who followed obediently.

The pigtailed girl, who panicked at the slightest hint of flirting, was absolutely collected. “Are they making more of themselves?” 

To a group of guests ignoring the alarms, she yelled, “Akuma alert! Please evacuate!” Then, to Marinette, she said, “What?”

“Is the villain making the minions, or are we in a full-on Zombizou-type plague?” Kagami’s charge clarified. 

“I don’t know--_ kuso! _” 

A group of terrified museum-goers was charging in the opposite direction of Kagami, Marinette, and the few Egyptophiles following them. Kagami intercepted the crowd, pulling Marinette behind her and bracing herself with arms crossed. A large teen in a leather jacket bounced off her, nearly taking her down, but her stance held, and she shoved him to the side. 

Once she was clear, she looked up the escalator at the source of the disturbance. A half-dozen tourists were scrabbling blindly, shouting about their eyes and lack of sight. One by one, mirror-zombies grabbed them and pulled the blinded victims faces into their own, which parted like quicksilver. When they pulled back from the ghastly kiss, it was as a pair of matched minions with identical, reflective facemasks.

But what caught Kagami’s eye was a particular, hapless victim, and old man crab-walking backwards to a lost cane, facing a villain out of Kagami’s view. And the mirror zombies ignored him, for a moment. But then, from somewhere down a hallway on the upper balcony, came a stream of… energy? Goo? It defied gravity like a blast of magic, but left trailers of liquid mercury dripping beneath it. It struck the man, crawled up his arm, and settled in his eyes, blinding him. 

The moment he was blinded, four mirror-slaves turned to him and began to slowly hunt him down.

“The villain blinds you, the minions assimilate the blind. You are vulnerable,” said Kagami. “We have to leave. Now!”

“What exhibits are shut down?” Marinette asked.

“What?”

“A shut-down exhibit will be empty and walled off. It’s the most defensible position. Are there any ‘sorry, come back later’ signs posted?”

In fact, they’d passed one on the way in. “Modern Far-Eastern, Richelieu wing, this floor.”

“There will be an emergency exit at the end of the wing. We’ll head that way, but we’ll have a place to hole up if we can’t make it.”

“Yes. Follow me--oh, _ no. _”

“What?”

The _ what _ was a glimpse of the supervillain itself. It moved too quickly for Kagami to get more than a general impression of its shape, humanoid and spiky and silver all over, before it jumped head-first _ into _the face of one of its minions. Then, the screaming from back in Egypt doubled in intensity.

“Run!” she said, dragging Marinette down their predetermined route. “It can teleport. It’s leaping from minion to minion.”

Adding to Mainrette’s list of surprises, she kept up her end of the conversation. Marinette’s likes were varied and fascinating, but universally _ sedentary. _Kagami assumed the girl had never exercised a day in her life. Yet here she was, fleeing from villains while in complete possession of her own breath. “Damn. Teleporters are the absolute worst. No offense.”

Several seconds later, Kagami figured out that Marinette referred to Oni-Chan. Of course, Marinette’s best friend was the Ladyblogger, so she’d be well-versed on every akumatized villain who’d blighted Paris. “No offense taken,” she said, then narrowed her eyes as a cluster of four visitors turned to Marinette and revealed themselves as enslaved victims. “Minions ahead!”

“Crap. Can we detour?”

“No,” said Kagami, “We go through. Don’t stop running. _ Allez! _” And with that, she burst to full speed, thrusting herself head-on towards her foes.

Her first opponent was a child, a girl of no more than ten years. She was light and small and went flying when Kagami swung a double-handed blow into her stomach. _ Gods above, please let Ladybug fix that, _ she thought, but that was all the self-doubt she could afford. An African woman in a purple dress, taller and stronger and blank-faced, lunged next; her unthinking attack was terribly off-balance, and a strike to her knee left her wide open to a shoulder toss. The last two, white men in nearly identical navy suits and ties, Kagami battered aside with swift blows to their heads. They fell just in time for Marinette to run between them.

“I’m here!” Kagami said. She grabbed Marinette’s arm and kept her straight. But then, from behind her, she heard a liquidy sound like a boot being drawn from thick mud. The akumatized monster’s hands emerged from the face of one of the suited men. Inch by inch, it clawed its way forth. “So’s the villain. _ Kuso! _”

“Far Eastern exhibit?” Marinette asked. 

They were right by it, in fact, and Kagami appreciated Marinette’s brilliance. Many of the individual rooms of the Louvre had sliding metal grates to seal them off, but most of them were well out of reach. This one, however, was pulled down, _ almost _all the way. “Left. On the ground!” She grabbed Marinette and threw the two of them into a barrel-roll under the small gap on the bottom of the opaque steel, then tugged it down the last two feet until it was flush with the ground. 

“Are we—” Marinette started to speak, but Kagami slapped a hand over her mouth. 

Marinette took the hint. Kagami got up. Careful to make as little noise as possible, she stood between the prone girl and the steel door, cane gripped in a kendo stance. And then, she listened

Footsteps, approaching the door. 

And then, leaving the door. 

And then, the muddy squelch of the villain leaping to another one of its minions.

“They’re gone,” said Kagami. “For the moment.”

“Wow,” said Marinette. “It’s gotten way, _ way _stronger than it was when I saw it yesterday. It didn’t have half these tricks in the first fight.”

Kagami sat on the ground, cross-legged. “We need a plan. We can wait here and hope we aren’t discovered; or, we can hope that the villain has left us a clear path to the exit, and try again, now that it’s distracted.”

Marinette sat up. Her sunglasses had gotten lost in the hustle. But on her, the reflective eyes were more fascinating than disturbing.

“I’ll stay here. You go,” said Marinette.

“Unacceptable,” was Kagami’s response. 

“Listen, Kagami. I’m dead weight like this. Here is… safe-ish. I’ll probably be okay. But I can’t ask you to risk yourself trying to protect me, when you’ve got a clear path to the exit. Without me slowing you down, you’ll make it out, I’m certain.”

“Unacceptable.”

“Kagami,” said Marinette. “You have to go. Please. Staying here for me… it’s sweet, but it’s foolish. You can’t--against these kind of odds—”

“Oh,” said Kagami. 

To her own ears, her words sounded slightly hollow, but it must have sounded much worse to Marinette. She stiffened. “Kagami?” She reached her hand out, looking to join it with Kagami’s. Kagami did not take the offer, and Marinette dropped her palm back into her laps. “Kagami, is something wrong?”

“I never told you when I began having feelings for you, did I?” 

Marinette blinked. “Kagami?”

“It was when you helped me find a purpose,” Kagami said. She held onto the cane with white knuckles, staring at the weapon. “When I felt as though my years of training had been pointless, _ you _told me that I had not wasted my life. You gave me a goal. You offered me a future as a warrior, and I began to see you as more than a friend. But now I understand that my emotions were based on a lie.”

Marinette held her palm up again. “Kagami, hand. Please.” This time, Kagami cooperated. Her hand was warm. “There’s a difference between being a warrior and facing an akumatized villain—”

“I know that!” Kagami snapped. “I’m not planning on hunting down the villain or purifying it’s Akuma. I am not Ryuuko. I know my limits_ . _”

“Then why…?”

“Because I know my limits,” Kagami explained. “I know what I cannot do, and what I can. And what I _ can _ do is keep you safe. The least expected from a samurai or a musketeer. The minimum asked of a Tsurugi or of a superhero. If… if I can’t protect even a single loved one, then what good am I?”

“Kagami, I swear to you I wasn’t lying. You _are_ a warrior. You are! But you also _have _to go!” pleaded Marinette.

“Those two statement are incompatible,” said Kagami. “A warrior would never abandon a companion in need.”

Marinette added another hand to Kagamis, pressing her fingers close to her chest. “Please… please, I’m begging you.”

Something snapped in Kagami. The warmth left her, and the cool cloak of the Ice Queen muted her boiling emotions. “I will leave, on one condition,” she said. “Admit, to my face, that you lied.”

“Kagami!”

“Admit that my feelings for you were founded on deception. Tell me you never thought I was a warrior.” Her affect was flat, but her volume was rising. She stopped herself--shouting was still dangerous--and resumed at a low, threatening hiss. “Tell me that… that you think of me as nothing but a girl play-acting with swords. Say that, and I’m gone.”

The young woman looking blindly back at her had a steely purpose, singular in intent. She began to say the cursed words, and the ice in Kagami’s demeanor started to creep inwards to her soul. “Kagami. You are just a gi—”

And like that, her purpose broke, and a silver tear formed in her eye. “You are just a g-g-girl, play--play-acting with--- darn it, I can’t do this!”

“You can’t even tell me the truth?” Kagami growled.

“I can’t _ lie!” _Marinette shouted. Kagami’s eyes shot open and she covered Marinette’s mouth again, to her counterpart’s surprise. When Kagami lowered her hand, and Marinette started again, quietly. “I can’t lie to you, especially when I know how devastatingly painful the lie would be. I can’t hurt you that way, even though it’s the only way to protect both of us. I just can’t do it!”

Lost in the rush of emotions, Kagami latched on to an out-of-place detail. “Protect...both of us?”

“Not important,” Marinette said. “Kagami, listen. I have never, not for a fraction of a millisecond, thought of you as anything but a warrior. I’ve never, ever seen anything as brave as you charging ahead to face a horde of minions just to protect me.” 

Kagami would not allow herself to cry. Tears could blur her vision, hindering her effectiveness. “Technically, you still haven’t _ seen _anything that brave,” she said instead.

“Ha! True.” At last, Marinette’s wonderful smile was back. “I envy your strength, and I believe you would fight to the last to protect me. From the bottom of my heart, that’s the truest thing I’ve ever said. But please--_ please _\--one last time, I’m praying for you to go ahead without me.”

“I refuse,” said Kagami. Marinette’s praise reverberated in Kagami’s spirit, impacting her in vast disproportion to the weight of the words’ meaning. Spirit fully revitalized, she swore, “By my pride as a warrior, I will stand at your side until the danger has passed.”

Marinette laid back on the ground, arms splayed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.” 

Kagami got up and pressed her ear to the slatted steel gate. She didn’t _ think _she heard footsteps, but she heard sirens and perhaps some screams. She definitely did not hear sounds of pitched battle, which likely meant that Ladybug and Chat Noir weren’t yet on the scene. 

“Listen, Kagami,” Marinette said from the floor. “I need to tell you something very important.”

Kagami’s heart fluttered a bit, but her cooler head prevailed. “I release you from your promise,” she said. “Any romantic realizations can wait.” Outside, something crashed. Had the villain broken something, or had a hero arrived?

“It’s not that!” said Marinette, though even in a crisis she managed a cute pink tint to her cheeks. “It’s important, and I need to know that you won’t tell anyone.”

“I will protect you,” said Kagami, straining to hear. The sirens had shifted from fire to a proper Akuma Alert--the authorities were on the scene, for all the good that would do. “So you don’t need to make any deathbed confessions. We will still be standing when Ladybug forces the akuma to its knees. You can share what you will afterwards, without the pressure of emergency._”_

“No. Stop. Kagami, listen.” Marinette was still talking at the ceiling, but her voice belied angst and frustration. “This cannot wait, and this _ cannot _get out. You need to promise—”

“I need to _ focus! _ ” she said. “I think I hear a fight, but I can’t tell where, or who’s fighting. I’ve let myself be distracted long enough. I will keep your confidence when this is done, but unless you’re about to tell me that you’ve secretly been Ladybug all along, _ it can wait! _”

There was a long pause. 

“Ummm….” ummed Marinette.

Despite herself, Kagami smiled. “I said I needed to focus. That means no secrets _ and no jokes _.”

“Ummmmmmmmm…”

Kagami turned her head slowly to Marinette, who had a terribly guilty look about her face. Dread, and awe, and disbelief, and infatuation, and confusion, all congealed in an intractable lump in Kagami’s gut. “You… you are joking. You must be. Marinette?”

“Umm...Tikki? Spots on?”

And then, Kagami’s world was pink and red.

  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

“You’re Ladybug,” Kagami said.

“Y-yup,” Ladybug answered, 

Kagami knew that Ladybug’s stuttering fear was her own fault, that she’d pressured the bravest hero in the city into exposing herself, all because the swordswoman was consumed with foolish pride. “And I’m a fool.” Kagami wanted to punch the steel door, but that would give away their location, so she drove her knuckles into her own palm instead. “I wanted someone to protect so badly that I flung myself in front of someone who didn’t need protecting.”

“I… didn’t need?” The nervousness was gone. Kagami had seen it before--the only thing stronger than Marinette’s self-doubt was her compassion for others. “Kagami...are your eyes closed right now?” Marinette--no, Ladybug--said softly.

“In shame.”

“Open them. Look at me,” Ladybug said, and Kagami didn’t answer, making the hero repeat herself. “Look at me.”

Kagami did. 

She blinked. “Ladybug, you’re…”

Ladybug tapped the corner of the silver eyes behind her red mask. “Still blind.” She kip-upped to her feet, and pressed a button to open her yo-yo. The bright light made Kagami squint. “And really, really freaked out, because you still haven’t promised—”

“If I break your confidence, then may I never wield a sword again.”

“Okay,” she said. “And so far, no time rabbits, so this will probably work out. Maybe. I hope.” Her hand sunk into the light of her yo-yo, going impossibly deep into a space that didn’t exist. And that was the least confusing part of what was happening--_ Time rabbits? Really? _ Kagami’s mind spun. But then Ladybug withdrew a familiar hexagonal box from her yo-yo’s compartment, and clarity settled back over Kagami’s mind. “You weren’t a fool. I needed your protection,” Marinette said. “And I still do.”

Kagami overflowed with joy.

“Kagami Tsurugi,” Ladybug intoned, opening the box’s lid, revealing a necklace in the shape of a fox’s tail. “This is the Miraculous of the Dragon.”

Kagami would never laugh at a blind person making a simple mistake. However, seeing Marinette’s earnest klutziness in Ladybug’s costume made it a challenge to maintain her standard of dignity. Though in fairness, seeing Ladybug be so very _ Marinette _ freed Kagami of a heavy burden of doubt she hadn’t realized she was carrying. 

“Wrong box,” Kagami said lightly.

“Oh,” Ladybug said. At first she seemed abashed, but then her eyes opened in horror. “You didn’t see that. I can risk my own identity, but I can’t put anyone else in danger! Forget you saw it, please!”

“I don’t under…” Kagami started to say, but then, she realized that she did understand. Ladybug didn’t normally carry the Miraculous on her person. She had the Dragon with her because she knew Kagami would be in close proximity most of the time. And since Kagami didn’t go to Marinette’s school, it followed that Rena Rouge most probably did.

Kagami quashed the thought. Although she was a child of the modern age and considered herself almost as French as Japanese, her mother had raised her to live in the old Japanese style. In a world of paper walls, one learned to ignore the obvious when decorum demanded it. 

“I don’t understand,” she said. “But I will respect your wishes. The Dragon?”

“Right, right!” Ladybug quickly swapped boxes, and handed Kagami the box without the invocation. Kagami opened it. A swirl of magic surrounded her.

“Kagami-san, a pleasure to be reunited!” Longg nodded his head. Kagami returned the bow, deeper, with deference. “I was afraid our first battle would also be our last.”

“Longg-sama, the feeling is mutual. I hope that the aftermath of this battle will permit us to speak at length. Your wisdom is enlightening, when time allows. Sadly, the current enemy leaves no time for discussion.”

“Well, then, let me quickly advise you that—”

“Longg, bring the storm!”

“--meditation in the style of NO WAIT!”

A gale blew through her lungs, a storm surge coursed through her veins, lightning crackled across her nerves. And where Kagami once was, now Ryuuko stood, ready for battle.

“Thank you, Ryuuko,” said Ladybug. “And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She drew her sword and carved a pattern into the air. Strength not her own guided her hand with unmatched accuracy. 

“I know how much this means to you,” the spotted heroine explained. “And this will be the second time that I tell you this is the _ last _ time you can use this Miraculous. Especially now that you know who I am, _ ohmygod my identity is blown this is so bad, _I absolutely cannot allow you to become Hawk Moth’s target.”

“With this Miraculous, I can do good,” Kagami said. “I will never regret doing good, no matter the circumstances.”

Ladybug grinned. “And that’s why you deserve to wield the Dragon. Now, Ryuko, let’s meet up with Chat Noir.” 

Ladybug held out her elbow, expecting Ryuuko to lead her as Kagami had led Marinette. However, Kagami was now powered by a miraculous. Her arms could bend steel. Her legs could leap buildings. She could, if she were so inclined, walk a tightrope with a car balanced on her head.

So, a girl who wouldn’t top 50 kilos soaking wet? Carrying her wouldn’t slow Kagami down at all.

Kagami slammed the steel slats straight upwards. They rattled on their railings. Then, she scooped up Ladybug--who she thought of as Marinette in the moment, because she couldn’t possibly do this to the Hero of Paris--into a bridal carry. They both shouted, Marinette in surprise and Kagami in excitement, and Kagami leapt towards the sounds of battle. 

\------

The skirmish was over before they got there. Chat Noir was crouched low, staff at the ready, surrounded by a prone and unmoving mirror slaves. The villain itself was nowhere to be seen. 

“Well well well!” he said to their arrival, setting his staff on the ground and resting his chin upon the other end. “Look what the cat _ dragoned _in!”

“Chat! What’s the status? And put me down, Ryuuko, this is humiliating!”

Ryuuko let Ladybug find her feet. “Minions down, villain not present. Was he here?”

“I’m hurt, lady Dragon! You don’t think I’d let him get away that easily?”

“He’s picked up some new tricks, Chat,” Ladybug explained. “He’s teleporting now.”

“Oh, wonderful. Just what I needed,” Chat sighed. “Let’s hope this doesn’t take forever. I’m supposed to be somewhere. My family will definitely notice I’m missing. Shall I guide you, milady?”

“Thank you, kitty, but I chose Ryuuko for a reason. She’ll be my eyes. You keep us safe.”

Chat’s eyes opened wide, then narrowed. “Speaking of that reason, Ryuuko, the person you were here with?”

Kagami didn’t have a strategy for answering. Her identity was exposed, but Marinette’s was not. Chat and Ladybug didn’t know who their counterparts were, did they? “She’s…”

“Ryuuko would never leave a friends side while that friend was still in danger,” Ladybug said. Kagami marveled that she had used a truthful statement and a heartwarming compliment into such effective misdirection. That, and the reassuring pressure of Ladybug’s arm, sent the Dragon’s mind briefly in a direction that was wildly inappropriate for the current situation. 

“Great!” said Chat. He collapsed his stick, stepped forward with feline grace, and offered a handshake that Ryuuko quickly accepted. “That puts you right with me in the top _ cat _egory of heroes, as far as I’m concerned! Now, let’s try and track Mister Mirror down, before this spreads any further.”

“Right,” said Ladybug. “Ryuuko, if you’re going to insist on carrying me, can you please do it piggyback style so I can retain a _ little _dignity? Chat, I’m not much for fighting in this state, but my hearing’s pretty good. Shout ‘Yo-yo’ and get out of the way quick if you need something smacked.”

“Yes, Ladybug.”

“Of course, milady!”

As if on cue, the grinding of tearing metal echoed down the hall, followed promptly by shouting. “He found some hold-outs. Let’s go!” Ladybug traced Ryuuko’s arm back to the source and shimmied up the dragon’s back. She hung on with miraculous strength, leaving Ryuuko’s hand free to draw her sword. Three heroes, on two pairs of feet, rushed headlong into danger. 

\------

The mirror minions were slow, clumsy, and ground-bound. The first shambling mass between the heroes and their targets was trivially avoided, located in an atrium with ample room for the heroes to leap over them. Ryuuko bounced off three marble busts in succession. Chat went straight for the ceiling banners, swinging like Tarzan from his jungle vines. 

The second mob was in a narrower passage, and Chat and Ryuuko had to fight. Chat took the lead. His first low strike with an extended staff hewed down ten minions at the ankles. “Ten pins down, a strike!” he cried. 

“Alley-oop!” Ryuuko said. Chat tumbled forward, turned, and offered his cupped hands as a foothold. She stepped, and he threw. Their combined might let her bowl over another half-dozen minions in a spinning blow, though with her sword still in its scabbard, her damage was limited.

Ryuuko liked it that way. Even if Ladybug’s power could undo all the damage bare steel would inflict, it wouldn’t erase Ryuuko’s memories of it. 

From behind her, Chat Noir shouted “Yo-yo!” Ladybug flung her weapon over her shoulder. Ryuuko heard a _ thock _of magical metal hitting a skull, and then Chat’s footsteps caught up with her. “Nicely done, milady!”

“Any time, kitty,” she answered.

Ryuuko fell back as they approached the villain’s presumed stronghold. “Someone tried to close this exhibit off,” she explained to the blind hero on her back. “The steel is warped, like it was brute-forced open. By the villain, or by his followers.”

“No one is screaming,” Ladybug said. “Is he still there?”

“One way to find out!” Chat’s claws screeched painfully on the glass of a nearby case. Then, a perfect circle of the class dropped to the floor. He put its contents--an old knightly helmet--onto the end of his staff, and extended it out past the opening.

A gloppy silver blast knocked the helmet clean of its perch, polishing it until it gleamed. 

‘Yup, he’s in there! Hey, monster monster monster! Come and get my Miraculous, why don’t you?”

“Chat,” Ryuuko said, “he can leap between the faces of his minions. If he starts to lose, keep him away from his goons.”

“You mean… like he’s doing now?” Chat said, having peeked around the corner. Ryuuko heard the footsteps of approaching minions from inside the exhibit, but Chat easily bend the gateway back into place.

“He’s running?” said Ladybug. “He’s not after our Miraculous? That must mean Hawk Moth isn’t in control any more. Though come to think of it, that explains why he’s never done this before. There has to be a drawback to giving an akuma this kind of supercharge, or he’d have tried it already.” 

“Do we give chase?” Ryuuko asked, tuning out the clamoring din of dozens of hands banging on the steel gate. 

“Normally I wait until later in the fight, but in some sense we’re 24 hours into this battle, so… Lucky Charm!” She tossed her yo-yo into the air, where it burst into red energy. The weapon then retracted into Ladybug’s hand. And unluckily, the lucky charm bounced off her head. “Ow!” she cried, bobbling the small red item before it settled in her palm.

_ What strange magic, making her immune to punches from stone giants but vulnerable to the vagaries of her own clumsiness, _ Ryuuko thought.

“It’s… a key ring?” Ladybug said. “And they're all labeled in braille. Nine-one-two-two-nine.”

“You can read braille?” Chat asked. “...of course you can, milady. Your unbounded brilliance awes me every time we meet!”

“Tomcat, save the flirting for _ after _the akuma,” Ladybug said. 

_ I could almost believe M. Kubdel’s ‘ghost possession’ theory, _ thought Kagami. _ Marinette blushes when I show her affection and can’t even say Adrien’s name, yet here she is brushing off the flirting of the most desired boy in Paris like it’s nothing! _But, as was her tendency, she kept her spoken words strictly to business. “That number was from the Egyptian wing. We’ll have to backtrack to the stairs--”

“No time,” said Ladybug. “Where is it _ exactly, _relative to us?” 

Kagami’s memory wasn’t photographic, but it was decent, and she’d been here many times before. She mentally reconstructed the map. “Directly below us.”

“Chat? Destroy the floor.”

“Wha--?” Ryuuko said, but Chat cut her off with a cry of ‘Cataclysm,’ and the ground turned to dust, and then they were falling. 


	5. Chapter 5

Kagami regained her balance and landed on her feet. Then, she dropped to her belly, narrowly dodging a silver blast overhead. Balanced in fingertips and toes, she at last got a look at her elusive foe.

He reminded Kagami of herself, or rather, of the ‘herself’ she’d seen on the ladyblog. Silvery head to toe, humanoid with angular protrusions, just like Riposte. His spikes looked more like a rock star than a samurai, however, jutting from shoulders and legs like a costume from a hair metal band. In fact, the scepter he held, although silver as the rest of him, looked not unlike a microphone. 

It was definitely a weapon and not a prop. He pointed it at he and fired. Kagami still had Ladybug on her back, so barrel-rolling wasn’t an option. Instead she used Ryuuko’s impossible strength and managed a high leap using just the strength of her arms.

“Ryuuko, get me to the mural, then keep him busy!” Ladybug shouted. “Chat, clear out any minions--he can’t be allowed to escape!”

“Understood!” “On it!”

The spacious Egyptian exhibit had only a dozen victims scattered throughout it--two by a sarcophagus, three by a jackal-headed statue. But a larger crowd waited in the next exhibit. All of them had been motionless, until Mister Mirror (_ was that really his name? Hawk Moth had no taste!) _thrust his microphone into the air, at which point they began trundling in the direction of the fight.

Ryuuko jumped over another blast, stepped on the face of a nearby goon, and soared towards the mural of the ancient Ladybug. “Here!” she said, and Ladybug slipped off her back and grabbed the wall. 

“Come on, come on, what are you telling me to do,” she said, feeling through the keys. 

Ryuuko didn’t have time to help. “Lightning Dragon!” She crackled across the exhibit, striking the back of the villain just in time to foil his aim and spare Chat Noir an early exit from the fight.

In fairness, Chat Noir had a good reason to have his back turned. He’d dug one end of his staff into the tile floor and was extending and retracting it into an un-dissolved section of the ceiling like a jackhammer. The collapsing rubble had formed a head-high wall, keeping the bulk of Mister Mirror’s forces trapped outside.

Ryuuko resolidified. She’d done minimal damage to the villain, but that wasn’t a surprise. To hurt the host of an akuma, she’d need to take more drastic measures. 

Her sword’s scabbard clattered to the floor. “_ Let’s go, monster,” _she said in Japanese.

He wordlessly answered with another silver bolt. 

She sidestepped, parried, and dashed towards him. He was caught off-guard by her shift to offense, though he was stubbornly nonverbal. He lashed out with another shot. She reversed direction agilely, slapping the blast aside again, and closed the remaining distance in a flash. He raised his forearm to guard against her overhead blow.

Ryuuko didn’t need to see where her sword was to know it’s position. Her training, supplemented by her Miraculous reflexes, gave her perfect proprioception. Had she been less skilled, she might have glanced at her blade, noticed the villain’s power creeping up its length and turning it from red to silver.

Instead, she was utterly astonished when her sword shattered like glass. 

“No!” she shouted futilely as the villain ensnared her in a monstrously strong bear hug.

“Ryuuko!” Ladybug cried.

Ryuuko remembered why she was fighting. 

“Ladybug! Yo-yo! Wind Dragon!” She vanished in a puff of air. and Ladybug’s yo-yo flew through her ghostly body and sent the mirror-singer flying backwards with a crack running across its chest.

“Ryuuko, are you alright?”

“My sword is broken, but I am unharmed.”

“Your sword--got it! Hang on, and keep him busy. Chat, are you--”

“Taking out the last of the trash!” he said from across the exhibit. True to his word, he’d disabled the last of the minions in the room. Now, spun his staff like a shield, and flanked the boss between himself and Ryuuko. “As for you, Mister Mirror, now you’re the one outnumbered--turna_ meow _ t is fair play! _ Allez! _” 

He lunged like a fencer, and the villain couldn’t avoid it fully. A chunk of his left pauldron went flying. Mister Mirror riposted with an energy beam that Chat Noir easily sidestepped. The next two blasts halted Chat’s advance, but the mirror man had turned his back on Ryuuko, and she stomped the back of his knee to bring him down. She ducked under a wild backhand, punched him in the face, and took out his other knee. Nothing dealt damage. Nothing needed to; the seconds of distraction let Chat close the distance and deliver a one-two-three sequence of glass-cracking blows to the akuma. 

Mister Mirror answered with an open-palm strike at Chat. The black-clad hero threw himself back with it, robbing it of strength. Ryuuko wrapped her arm around the villain’s neck and her legs around his weapon-arm, pitting her muscle against his, keeping him from pointing his microphone at Chat Noir. 

It was a devastating error. 

Kagami Tsurugi was a duelist. She was trained to zero in on her foes and crush them. She had no formal training as a bodyguard. And so, as she wrestled to keep Mister Mirror from aiming his weapon back into the fray, she didn’t notice that he’d changed target.

Chat Noir did, and with desperate speed, he threw himself between Mister Mirror and Ladybug just in time to take the shot himself. He rolled on the ground, rubbed his silver eyes, and started feeling along the ground for his dropped staff.

“Chat!” Ryuuko yelled.

“I’m fine, just a little blind!”

“Water Dragon!” Ryuuko took the form of a crashing wave, flooding the villain twenty meters backwards, and the resolidified at Chat’s side. She helped him to his feet. “My apologies, Chat, Ladybug. I failed to consider the battlefield. But fear not. I will shield both of you for as long as you need.”

Chat’s answer was preempted by a beep from his miraculous. “We don’t have that long,” he said. “You shield her. I’ll shield you!”

“How?” Kagami began. Then, Chat literally crawled up her front, wrapping his legs around her waist and his arms around her shoulders. 

“Ryuuko,” he said, “here’s Hero 101: the only thing that matters is Ladybug purifying the akuma. That means sometimes, you take a hit for her. Even if I can’t fight, I can be your body-armor.”

He was awkwardly shaped and awkwardly located, but he was right: the villain was aiming for center mass. “I’ll try, but with no sword--”

“Catch!” Ladybug cried. 

Ryuuko’s body listened before her brain had fully processed the language, and her hand closed around the bare hilt of a weapon. It was bronze, long, and hooked like an axe. Ladybug had used her lucky charm key to open the case with the ancient Khopesh. Kagami’s ill-advised flirting had been prophetic. The dilapidated weapon was all she had to stand between Marinette and an akuma. 

“Thank you, Ladybug,” she said. “I will defeat him, and I will do it without injury. I know that it would break your heart if I were to get hurt on your behalf.”

She blushed, and thank heavens Chat Noir was too blind to see it. Instead, he quipped, “And what am I, chopped liver?” Then, with a quirky grin, he said, “_ En Garde! Prêts? Allez!” _

Kagami didn’t have the brute strength to use the axe-like cleaving edge of a khopesh. Ryuuko did. She rushed straight into a beam, letting it splatter of Chat Noir’s back, and her brutal chop sent spiderweb cracks running up and down MIster Mirror’s entire arm. 

Kagami didn’t have the reflexive instinct to use the ensnaring hook of a khopesh. Ryuuko did. She locked it around his wrist, flipped herself and Chat over the monster’s shoulder, and pointed the microphone directly at its own face. She wasn’t exactly sure what effect the blast had had, but it was sufficient to break his grip and send the mic spinning into the air.

Kagami couldn’t control a weapon by its bare tang. Ryuuko could. She hurled the khopesh with precision, and it tumbled through the air and shattered the microphone to pieces, sending the black butterfly free.

“The akuma is released!” she called.

“Miraculous Ladybug!”

The bugs swarmed. Chat Noir blinked his green eyes and handsprung backwards off her body. The ceiling reappeared, and its shattered remnants lifted to reveal a crowd of dazed and confused individuals. Ryuuko was again holding her red straightsword, and the khopesh rested once more on the wall of its exhibit. 

“Time to de-evilize!” Ladybug shouted, and in a final flash of magical power, she caught the butterfly in her yo-yo and cleansed it. “Bye bye, little butterfly!”

“I… where am I… what am I--NO, DON’T LOOK AT ME!” The victim said--naturally, causing everyone to look at him, Ryuuko included. As his villainous form implied, he was dressed in a janky homemade rockstar costume, with spikes, shoulder pads, and… a kitty mask?

“Hey, buddy,” Chat said. “As someone who runs around the city in leather cat-ears: it’s no big deal! We all play dress up from time to time. Though, life pro tip? If you don’t want to be seen in your cosplay, maybe wear it at home and _ not _in the office building locker room?”

“It… it had the best lighting,” the man said. He had a pimple-marked face and a cracking voice; he must have been a late-blooming 18 if he was working in an office, but without that clue, Kagami would have pegged him as a high-schooler. “I… there’s this amazing indie band, Kitty section, and I wanted to let them know I’m a fan… but the video was just for them, and when everyone walked in--”

“I get it,” said Ladybug. Her earrings beeped. She winced. “I know this was horribly embarrassing, but you can’t let it ruin something that you love! Send them the video. I… I happen to know one of the band’s members. I’ll make sure they look at it, I promise!”

Tears streaming down his face, he looked up and said in disbelief, “You will?”

Chat Noir’s miraculous took its turn to beep. “She will. But I have to go--and you do too, Princess! Ta-ta!” he said, before pogo-sticking towards the nearest exit.

“He’s right,” she sighed. “Ryuuko, let’s find someplace private I can collect your miraculous and keep it safe.” Kagami got the impression that that final bit had been for her benefit, to let Hawk Moth know she wasn’t a target. “We should--wait, hold on. M. Kubdel?”

Kagami glanced to the side. The young academic was, like the rest of the villain’s minions, rubbing his eyes and regaining his bearings. “Yes, Ladybug?”

“I need you to pass on my apologies to the higher-ups at the museum. First, I’m sorry that I made a foolish mistake that put the entire museum in danger.”

“I…” He blinked several times, as if to convince himself she was really there. “You did? Well, I’ll pass that on. And second?”

“Second, I’m sorry for the broken glass.”

“What?”

Ladybug’s yo-yo zipped across the room, shattering the glass that protected the ancient Egyptian scepter of the Pharaoh. The yo-yo, and the scepter, snapped back into her hand, and she tossed the staff into the air. “Time to de-evilize!” she shouted for the second time, and the glow of her weapon consumed the ancient relic. 

When she caught it on its way down, the once-green stripes up and down its length had been bleached pure white. 

She handed the artifact to Jalil, who took it in trembling hands. “No more evildoing for you, little scepter,” she said. Then she grabbed Ryuuko by the wrist and took her at full speed towards the exit, leaving a dancing M. Kubdel to shout ‘I told you so’ into the empty air.


	6. Chapter 6

“Okay, Marinette, the world isn’t ending. Someone knows your identity, but it’s cool. We’ll make it work.”

The poor, frantic girl was talking to herself on the roof of a building a few city blocks over from the museum. The Richelieu Wing had been occupied, and there was no plausible was to explain two heroes walking into a closed exhibit and two 15-year-olds walking out. So, they’d bolted to the skyline. They hadn’t gotten far before Ladybug’s transformation gave out, and Ryuuko’s followed shortly after. The Ladybug kwami was happily munching on a macaron; Longg was munching less happily, bemoaning a lack of pearls to eat. 

The red-spotted kwami looked up from her meal. “You’ll have to make it work, Marinette, but I wish you hadn’t done that. Exposing your identity willingly was a terrible decision!”

“I know, I know,” she said, “but what else was I going to do?”

Tikki jammed the remainder of the cookie into her mouth, then licked up the crumbs with a tiny tongue. “She told you what to do. You hate liars, but sometimes, lies are the only way to protect people.”

Marinette had been wandering, staring at the sky and the ground and anything but Kagami and Tikki. The Kwami’s suggestion, however, grabbed her full attention. “It wouldn’t have just been a lie! It would have crushed Kagami. It would have hurt her in a way that my Miraculous Cure couldn’t undo.”

“Tikki-sama,” said Kagami. This seemed like a good time to intervene. “Marinette holds my affection and my friendship. She also holds a close secret of my own as collateral. My word is my bond. I will not expose her.”

“Of course you won’t,” Tikki said sadly. “But can you make that same promise on behalf of Riposte or Oni-chan?”

Kagami froze in place. “I… regretfully, cannot.”

“And that’s why this is bad, Marinette,” said Tikki. Longg hovered alongside her, making slow progress on his own snack. The normally loquacious kwami let her speak, out of deference, hunger, or both. “It’s not a complete disaster. Most Ladybugs have their cover blown at some point, and most of them turn out fine. But… among the many young Ladybugs that I’ve lost, the single most frequent cause of death was a villain finding them at home. You’ve made things very dangerous for yourself and for your family.”

“There must be something we can do!” cried Marinette.

Kagami’s eyes watered. She rubbed them and waited to talk until she was confident she would not cry. “There is,” she said. “I will inform my mother that the situation has changed and I am no longer content in Paris. I’ll tell her that I plan to quit fencing, and have no use for D’Argencourt’s academy. I will miss you terribly, but in Tokyo, I will do you no harm.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Tikki said.

“No!” Marinette shouted. 

“Marinette…”

“No! No, no, no! Tikki, I cannot believe this. I’m… I’ve never been so disappointed in you!” Her blue eyes--_ had they always been that blue? _\--seemed to burn away the nascent tears that had begun to form.

“Disappointed… in me?” Tikki was thousands of years old, or older, but Marinette had her cowed.

“Yes, disappointed in you!” She stomped the gravel roof. “You think I should crush a girl’s spirits to protect myself. You think I should ruin a girl’s life because it’s safer for me. What’s next? I defend my identity by letting akuma hurt civilians? I join up with Hawkmoth because it’s less risky than fighting him? I put on these earrings, _ knowing _I could lose my life, because being a hero was the right thing to do. So how can you look at me now and tell me to start acting like… like… like a villain?” 

Marinette’s tirade had made Tikki slowly float backwards. She ended up bumping into Kagami’s chest and staying there, wide-eyed. 

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?” Marinette said.

Tikki’s answer was soft, a mixture of kindness, awe, and shame. “I… have never been prouder of a Ladybug in my existence. Kagami, I owe you an apology--”

“Tikki-sama, you do not. You were trying to do what was best for Marinette. Nothing more.”

“But you were still wrong,” said Marinette. “I’m not mad. You’ve done so much for me, Tikki. I wouldn’t be half the hero I am without you. But for this issue… I can take it from here. Maybe you and Longg can spend some time catching up?”

Tikki hesitated. Longg did not. “Of course, Ladybug-san. We will be out of earshot but not further than the miraculous can summon. By your leave, Kagami-san?”

“Of course, Longg-sama,” Kagami answered with a deep bow.

The two flittered off, hovering down the side of the building in relative silence. Once the were gone, Kagami looked at Marinette. The pigtailed girl squirmed, and Kagami knew she was staring, but she couldn’t look away. 

“You’re amazing,” Kagami said.

“Says the girl who beat her way through a horde of magical villains with a stick.” Marinette’s joke lightened both their moods, but she was still holding back from eye contact. “Everything I said was true. You’ve done so much for me. I want to believe I’d be brave enough to do this for anyone in the city. But for you? I can’t ask you to leave behind everything… to leave behind Adrien…”

“Marinette, there is something I must say,” Kagami said quickly. _ A Tsurugi does not hesitate, _she reminded herself, and continued. “I apologize--not for my feelings, but for my timing, as it adds another stressor to an already difficult day. However, you should know…”

“I should know?” Marinette squeaked.

She’d already figured out what Kagami was about to say. But it was important that Kagami say it. “You should know that as of this moment, _ Adrien _ is not my motivation for staying in Paris.”

Marinette pointed a shaky hand at her chest. Kagami nodded.

“Because I’m…” Marinette said, now pointing to her earrings.

“No. As of _ this _ moment,” Kagami said. “As of the moment you stood in my defense against an ancient spirit of creation, and _ won. _”

“I… I… I…” 

Marinette was terrified. Kagami had foreseen this outcome, but couldn’t find a way to avoid it that satisfied her need for honesty and honor. Hopefully, she could mitigate the meltdown before it went critical.

“You need say nothing.” Kagami spoke as calmly as she could. “I’m going to touch your shoulder?”

“I can see again,” Marinette said with a slight smile. Kagami’s plan was already working. “You don’t need to warn me.”

“I need to give you a chance to say no,” Kagami explained. “As I said, my feelings have complicated things.”

“A hand on a shoulder won’t freak me out. Too much. Probably. I hope.” She closed her eyes and tensed like she was waiting for a doctor to give her a shot. But the hand on her shoulder had its intended effect, and she sagged into the touch. 

“I trust you to tell me if the answer is ‘never.’ I will hurt, but I will move on, and you will be my friend regardless. But for now, ‘not yet’ is acceptable. My eyes… they must not guilt you into a rash decision.”

Marinette was nodding. Her eyes had not yet opened.

“Especially now that I’ve learned there is even more competition than I first thought.”

“Oh. Ch-chat?” she said.

“We should sit.” 

Marinette’s breathing was still shallow and her angst led her to stumble, but thankfully not trip, on her way to the edge of the raised vestibule for the roof stairs. She settled down onto the gravel, knees held tight to her chest. Kagami gave her plenty of space.

“He’s a great partner, but I don’t love him that way,” Marinette said.

“So the pictures online?”

“Ugh.” Marinette rested her head back, whacking it against the wall. “Ow! I’m fine, I’m fine! Dont’ worry. The pictures… I don’t know what happened. Memory akuma. I guess that means...I thought I could fall in love with him, when I didn’t know anything about him. But Chat loves my mask, not me.”

“Your mask?”

“I’m not the great perfect hero people think I am,” Marinette began.

“You _ are-- _” Kagami tried to interrupt, but a raised palm silenced her.

“I’m good at being Ladybug. I’ve saved people. I know that. A year ago, towards the beginning, I felt like a total impostor. I’m past that. I’m a hero. But I’m _ also _a klutz and a romantic mess and a jealous cow. I… I try to believe the positives outweigh the negatives--”

“They do.”

“--but he’s never _ seen _the negatives, so how can he say he loves me? Maybe… maybe he’d still feel that way if he knew I was Marinette, but I can’t ever tell him.” She peered at Kagami from behind her knees. “Part of why I’m okay with you staying in Paris is that even if the worst happens, you get akumatized and take me out, Chat will still be out there. There’s still hope. But if Chat knows who I am and Hawk Moth gets him, or vice versa… that’s it. Game over.”

“I see,” said Kagami. She wrestled with the morality of pressing further. She decided it was worth it. In the end, Marinette seemed _ happy _to be getting this off her chest. Marinette no longer needed Kagami’s eyes, but she did still require her ears, and Kagami was happy to lend them. “Then… the blue-haired boy?”

“Luka,” she said wistfully. “He’s a big teddy bear. That sounds nice, and it is, but it’s also kind of an insult.”

“Is it?” asked Kagami, curious. 

“He listens. He hugs. He’s warm and accepting. He’s great to have around when I feel like the world is falling apart around me. Just like a teddy bear, he’ll always let me talk to him or squeeze him or whatever.”

“That’s the nice part.”

Marinette smiled morbidly. “And just like a teddy bear, I can put him down, leave for a week, and find him right back where I left him. He… he told me he l-l-loved me. Not the L-word explicitly, but a bunch of stuff about me being beautiful and perfect. And then… nothing, not a word, not texts, no calls. My guess is if you asked him, he’d say something like ‘If you love someone, let them go, and if they don’t come back, they were never yours.’ But I can’t… I can’t commit to dragging someone around with me full-time, even if they’re incredibly cuddly. If I wanted that, I’d buy an _ actual _teddy bear!”

Kagami joined Marinette in a strained chuckle. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. 

“And finally,” said Kagami, “there’s Adrien.”

“Y-yeah.” Marinette put her chin on her knees and gazed at the afternoon sky. “I don’t need to tell _ you _why I like him, do I?”

Kagami joined Marinette, staring at wispy clouds floating across the blue ceiling of the world. “You do not.”

Marinette told her anyway. “How did he turn out so kind and caring? He’s isolated and abused, but also famous and successful. How is he _ not _another Chloe?”

“An interesting puzzle,” answered Kagami, “but not a salient one. He is who he is. And that is a strong, intelligent, and kind individual.”

“I just… I just wish…” Marinette stopped, groaned, and started over. “I fell in love with him when he handed me an umbrella in a rainstorm.”

Kagami shook her head, and a ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “Typical”

“Yes, and I don’t want him to change, but I wish it hadn’t been typical. I love how he cares for and protects everyone, but I want to be more than everyone, to be singled out, and…” 

Marinette stopped suddenly. Replacing her words was heavy breathing, and her pupils had shrunk to pinpricks.

“Marinette?” Fear settled in Kagami’s gut like heavy sentiment. “Marinette? What’s wrong. Are you injured?” She was on her feet, but didn’t remember standing up. Was she just flashing back? Or had she seen another real threat? The Kwami were still absent--why did she come up her without a _ sword-- _

“I-I-I’m f-fine! Don’t panic!” 

Was Kagami the one panicking? She put two fingers on the veins inside her wrist and counted heartbeat. Yes, in fact, she was.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just realized--I just…K-Kagami?” Marinette reached out, uncoordinated, and ended up with a fistful of Kagami’s lapel. “W-w-what did I promise you last night?”

“Marinette,” Kagami sighed. She tried to banish her fear, and mostly succeeded. “Marinette, if this is causing you pain--”

“No! I mean it is, but it shouldn’t be, and it’s like a bandage that you have to rip off, and I feel like a coward but you’ve helped me be strong so please, _ please, _tell me what I promised.”

“You promised me that you would not let fear govern you,” Kagami said. “You promised that you would not waste either of our time. You promised me that, whatever I become to you, it will not be another Adrie--”

“I’m describing you!” Marinette shouted.

Kagami’s heart rate spiked again, this time for a completely different reason.

“You are?” she asked, superficially calm despite her own jittery nerves.

Barely inhaling, Marinette began to explain. “I… I want someone who can see me as a hero like Chat, but who stays with me even after seeing me at my worst. That's you. I want someone who will sit back and listen like Luka, but who will actively push me when I need it. That's you. I want someone who will fight to defend anyone, like Adrien, but who fights just a little bit harder for me. And that--that’s _ you._”

“I see.” Kagami thought that she should have more to say, but in her current state, she could barely pronounce those two words.

Still watching the gravel, Marinette asked, “So what does that mean for us?”

“To me? It means everything. I will treasure your words for the rest of my mortal days. But to you? It means nothing,” Kagami said, hating herself for her own compulsive need for honesty.

“N-nothing?”

“Marinette, you have taught me many things in the short time I’ve known you. One important lesson was the futility of trying to _ reason _ your way into a relationship. Our first outing as friends faced… many difficulties…”

“That’s polite of you.” Marinette was watching Kagami again. Two steps forward, one step back. “I was being a jealous cow, like I said.”

“And I was being an emotionless robot. I was trying to tick off boxes on a friendship checklist, and that would have failed on your best of days. I know as little about love as I do about having friends, but I imagine it’s similar.”

“I see,” said Marinette, mimicking Kagami’s prior reply.

“Bear in mind, I’m not demanding that you throw yourself onto one knee and proclaim your love for me with poems and jewelry,” Kagami continued, making Marinette snort. “But if you enter a relationship on the sole basis that I meet an arbitrary set of criteria, then we are doomed from the start. Before we move beyond friendship, I need you to feel _ something _towards me. ”

“You’re direct,” Marinette said. “I like that.”

“Then I’ll be direct again. Do you feel something?”

“I don’t know.”

“You need time.”

“I don’t… I can’t… or, I guess I can, now, right?” Marinette’s smile was warmer now, no longer filtered through her fear. “You know who I am. That saddles us with a lot of baggage, but it means I can repay your honesty in kind.”

“Ah,” Kagami said. “It’s a Ladybug thing, then?”

“Partially.” She patted the ground to her left. “Will you sit back down with me?” 

Kagami slid down the wall to the gravel about a meter away from Marinette, to give her space. Marinette closed the distance, and rested her head on Kagami’s shoulder. Kagami fought hard to stay still.

“Kagami, I’m so, so _ tired, _” Marinette said. 

Kagami nodded. “I’m listening.”

“Day to day I have a lot more freedom that you and Adrien. Nothing I do is really scheduled. I can always make time for a friend or a party. Month to month, though? I work just as many hours as the either of you. I’m a class rep, a designer, a baker, a straight-A student, a roadie, a seamstress. It’s all things I love, don’t get me wrong! But it’s a lot.”

Kagami nodded. “And that’s just as a civilian. With Hawk Moth…”

“Not just him. He’s bad--so many sleepless nights, staying up late completing the jobs that akuma made me skip--but there’s also the _ responsibility. _ I have to win every fight. I have to heal every victim. I have to manage every temporary hero, and I have to pretend like Queen Bee hadn’t spent four years bullying me when I do it. I have to calm Chat down when he’s pissed-- _ rightly! _\--that he’s frozen out of the decisions I make about temp heroes. It’s all so much. Almost too much.”

“Perhaps you need to step back your civilian activities?”

She shook her head. “I won’t give Hawk Moth the satisfaction. That’s stupidly stubborn of me, right?”

Diplomatically, Kagami answered, “Stupid stubborness is a prerequisite of a great hero.”

“Heh heh. Fair.” She nuzzled her cheek into Kagami’s shoulder. “All this stress. All this conflict. All this love I’m getting from Luka and Chat and you. All these things I might feel for you three, that I do feel for Adrien. It’s all just... _ tangled. _This giant, impossible knot, tied up in my chest. If there’s love for you in there--I’m not saying there is, but I can’t rule it out--if it’s there, it’s buried deep, and I don’t know how to untangle it.”

“May I make a suggestion?” Kagami asked gently.

“I trust you,” Marinette answered. 

“There are two ways to untie impossible knots. The first, common method is to find an end and work backwards. One loop, one twist, one turn at a time, painstakingly dissecting it while taking care not to tighten it further.”

Marinette nodded. Kagami felt it through the cloth of her jacket.

“However, I prefer the second method. The swordswoman’s method. Alexander, cleaving through the Gordian Knot. Cut it straight through the heart, and be done with it.”

“That’s so very you.”

“Thank you.”

Jokingly, Marinette asked, “Are you sure that was a compliment?”

“I choose to make it one,” Kagami replied in similar humor.

“That’s _ also _very you.” Marinette breathed slowly and deeply. “We’re talking feelings, though, not rope.”

“I am aware.”

Marinette paused again. “So then...what kind of sword do you plan to use? You know, to cut through my muddled ball of emotions and get straight to my hea-”

Kagami turned her head and kissed Marinette on the lips.

Marinette grabbed her, neither participatory nor resistant, merely in need of balance. Kagami kept her lips in place. She was as close to the stunningly lovely Marinette as she’d ever been, bathed in the taste of her lip gloss and the scent of her shampoo. She could feel Marinette’s pulse, hear her every breath. 

She thought that was supposed to be doing something with her mouth or her tongue, but no number of romance manga could compensate for her lack of real practice. She kept up the pressure, aiming for firm but not predatory, and waited in terrified anticipation for the answer to the question: _ will she kiss back? _

The answer, miraculously, was yes.

It was a barely perceptible change. The lips slack against Kagami’s pursed together; the hand squeezing the fabric of Kagami’s shirt opened to rest on her floating ribs. Experimentally, Kagami pulled fractionally back--and to Kagami’s immeasurable joy, Marinette pushed fractionally forward. 

Kagami broke off, staring at Marinette with undisguised love. Marinette stared back. Her expression was substantially more complex than Kagami’s, but Kagami judged it to be founded in happiness.

“Well…?” Kagami asked.

“I don’t… I’m still confused by all this. I still can’t make any promises,” said Marinette. But she did not flinch, did not so much as look away from Kagami. Instead, she brushed at Kagami’s cheek with her fingertips. “It’s been six hours since I learned that I was even capable of physical attraction towards other girls! I have no idea what I’m doing. But…”

“But?” Kagami said. She was willing to give Marinette all the space she needed. So it was all Marinette’s doing when they ended up in a tight, blush-inducing hug.

“...but I liked it when you kissed me.”

_ I could tell, _Kagami thought. She smirked without saying it. 

“I don’t--I don’t know if that’s enough--”

“It will be,” Kagami said. “A bonfire starts from the smallest spark. If there’s _ something _there, and you are willing to nurture it, then I will be an enthusiastic participant.”

“But… what if it doesn’t… what if we can’t?” Marinette was beginning to lose it. Kagami was unsurprised. In fact she was honored, that Marinette had carried on this conversation this long and this coherently on Kagami’s behalf.

“Then I will thank my _ friend _ for giving me a fair chance, and for respecting the time limit my blindness imposes. As you wisely said, with my fading eyes, ‘maybes’ hurt far more than ‘no.’”

“But--”

“Enough,” Kagami said sternly. “No more buts. No more planning a break-up before we’ve gotten together. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, _ do not hesitate. _I am asking you: will you go out with me?”

Marinette’s mouth started to move. Kagami couldn’t read lips, but she could read Marinette fairly well, and she thought the girl was saying something in the vein of ‘you can do this, this is fine, this is normal.’ The mental obstacle, the internal barrier she faced was tall and steep. 

But like a hill, her anxiety was a struggle only until she crested the top. Once she’d passed that final point, the rest was easy coasting. She grinned, and her beautiful blue eyes ate Kagami alive, and she said, “I think so… but maybe you should k-k-kiss me again, first. Just to be sure.”

So, Kagami did.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this section of Seeing One Another! As a reminder, make sure you follow the series and not just the individual sections so you'll get alerted when the next story, Eyes Open, goes live.


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